Oglala Sioux Get New Daycare Site in South Dakota Story-Date: 09:40 a.m. PST Sunday , September 21, 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------ Oglala Sioux Get New Daycare Site in South Dakota Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News PINE RIDGE, S.D.--Sep. 22--There will be a new place for little ones to go while their parents attend school on the reservation. "We believe schools need to get involved with children before they start school," said Terry Albers, the Chief Educational Facilitator for the Shannon County School District. The Shannon County School District has started the first state certified daycare on the Oglala Sioux Reservation. The Red Rock Daycare Center in Batesland, S.D., will begin operations to include infants to five-year-olds. The center will serve 12 children and employ five residents. The center is set to open on November 1. The daycare will be state funded and has received grants to start up the center, including one that Sen. Tom Daschle announced. He said the Shannon County School District was awarded a $15,000 grant, administered through the USDA, to help with renovation of a three bedroom home that will become the daycare center. "This award is great news for the Pine Ridge community," said Sen. Daschle, "The new day care facility will help to assure parents that their children are being cared for in a safe and modern facility." "Too many times people talk about changing things, it takes someone like Mr. Albers to get it going," said Tom Vocu, school board member. Mr. Albers says the idea for the daycare came seven months ago when the Shannon County School board received reports that many Oglala Lakota College students could not attend school because there wasn't anyone to watch their children. They took it upon themselves to look into a daycare and researched funding ideas through Social Services and Badlands Headstart, who also helped with training their employees. The daycare is set up to help parents ease the problems of welfare reform and train students from OLC in child care to gain experience that will help them upon graduation. The training will be of no cost to the students and sessions are expected to be held four times a year. "We don't want to be the only one, we just want to prove it can work," said Mr. Albers. He hopes others on the reservation take steps to become state certified and help with the problem of daycare on the reservation. If anyone is interested in helping, the daycare is accepting donations of toys and other items. Call (605) 288-1921. ----- Visit Indian Country Today on the World Wide Web at http://www.indiancountry.com/ ----- (c) 1997, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News. ------------------------------------------------------------